Crimson Queen: A Fantasy LitRPG Series

Mephisto's Magic Online, Book 2

By: Christopher Johns

Narrated by: Rebecca Woods, Gabriel Michael

Aether awakening. Delving into darkness. Bonds of blood forged anew.

Kyvir and his friends are just a few days away from Belgonna’s Hold. Yet, as excited as they are to take in the splendor of a new city, surviving the journey is holding all of their attention. The team has survived leveling up in the beginner city of Iradellum, fighting man-eating hell cats, and wrong turns with the guards. All of this just to gain access to Kyvir’s Summoning Aether. A little grass isn’t going to beat them.

Upon arriving at the Dwarven stronghold, they find evidence that someone is attempting to summon the darkest of creatures into the hold itself. For what purpose? Unknown, but the thought of a demon invasion doesn’t scream "happy times". Since the only person who can awaken Kyvir is the leader of the dwarves, the Crimson Queen herself, they are forced to look deeper into the dark layers of the citadel.

Loyalties will be tested, bonds pulled taut, and new ties could bind the group in strange ways to this Crimson Queen.

©2020 Christopher Johns (P)2020 Mountaindale Press

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i love the story and character's. the performance brought everything to life for me. I absolutely cannot wait for the next book.

starting to love

So, I just finished Crimson Queen in the fine early morning! Crimson Queen is the second book in the Maphisto’s Magic Online series, which I’m really starting to love.
This book was great, obviously less I can say about it outside of spoilers, but still. This book really progressed EVERYTHING from the first book into being something new in the second.
The biggest was charecter progression, each charecter getting much stronger both in the litteral sense and as a charecter, especialy the two main charecters who gained even more personality.
Several tertiary charecters also gained more this book, and will become more important in the next, so I’m really interested in them.
The other plot lines, mostly those that are in-game, expanded well, even as the world changed and charecters move allowing for a dynamic world that’s not seen in many books, even those books that aren’t about litteral games.

Power, but at what price

Seth, Mona, and the group have a good start in the game as they have unlocked all of their magic except for one of Seth's magic powers. The problem is that there is no master in the city that can unlock this specific power. He and is friends will need to cross a dangerous stretch of land in order to get to the next city to have his power unlocked. Once they get there, they will need to find the master and find out what they will need to do in order to unlock the power. In Mephisto's Magic Online, there is always a price. Will the power be worth the price though?

This has been one of my favorite new series. The first book introduced the characters and started to hint that there is a connection between MMO and the real world. It seems that some powers are bleeding over to the real world. This isn't really talked about at all in Crimson Queen other than "We need to get stronger, so that we are ready." I would have liked to have a bit more information about if there is more going on or if the people from the original book were captured, etc. Also, the unique powers that the members of the party received were not spelled out again. It would have been nice to take a moment to remind us what Seth's power did.

The narration in this book is top notch. I love it when a book has a male and female narrator. I feel that it really helps with immersion.

Chris continues to expand on a fun new world

The 2nd book in a great new fun series. Please start with the first book in the series. Really enjoy the character depth and growth in this series. Chris does a fantastic job of combining real world elements into a fantasy story and allows the characters to grow and resolve their pain. See also Axe Druid series.

A direct continuation of the first. Good and Bad

I had some hopes the second book in this series would start focusing less on some of the more juvenile love interest tension, but was disappointed that it actually doubled down and made it a main focus. There were some really cool additions to the story with introducing new characters and dynamics into the game world, and some of the aspects of the game that bled into the real world, but the forced relationship drama just got in the way of the full potential of what Mephesto's world could be. Again Rebecca Woods delivered a really strong performance, and I think breaking the chapters up by character POV did help with the split protagonist angle.

I will continue, as there is just enough interest and intrigue for me to see this through.